Long Walks Home
by Callipio
Summary: Seriously guys. You think Sherlock can last more than two weeks without his John? Lestrade is lazy, Mycroft is vindictive, and Sherlock is plotting to kill his best friend for looking...so...happy! He just died for god's sake! Chapter two, or, Sherlock ruins yet another press conference is now up!
1. Long Walks Home

**Long Walks Home**

John fell into a routine almost immediately.

The day after the funeral he fell into it with military precision. Wake up 7:10, shower, pull on his soft bomber jacket, and make his way to the café for coffee. John was a tea person by nature, but he found the need for something bracing in order to venture into a Sherlock-less London. He'd cut through downtown, merging in with the foot traffic and hardly looking around as he walked. His pace was brisk, very much a man on a mission.

It took him the better part of half-an-hour to make it to the cemetery. His pace remained steady, face expressionless, almost absent, as he weaved between headstones and solemn angels.

Finally, at the shadow-sheened headstone, cut fresh less than a week ago, his pacing stopped.

Sherlock watched from his traditional place just behind a tree.

He had found in his brief absence from the living that a cemetery was perhaps an ingenious place to pretend to be dead. Mycroft had hardly glanced at his fake cadaver; he certainly wasn't putting surveillance on his brother's eternal resting ground, preferring instead with mundane topics like Sherlock's posthumous _honor _and _legacy_. The price and the luxury of this cemetery alone meant that Sherlock was guaranteed the privacy, space, and time he needed to wait for Mycroft to clear his name, and allow the air of Moriarty's criminals to settle.

The only small risk to his membranous enclosure was John.

His John.

The first morning John had walked through the cemetery; Sherlock was surprised, but realistically not taken off-guard. He'd known he'd been seeing John's face once and awhile around here, but he hadn't expected it so soon after the funeral, and didn't entirely expect him to be alone.

Sherlock timed John's meditative state in front of his own headstone. Unlike yesterday, after his funeral, the captain said nothing, offered no final pleas, didn't do more than shift his foam cup in his hands and stare, reflective, at the bright, black rock with Sherlock's name inscribed on it.

That headstone was a source of annoyance for Sherlock. The only thing he was grateful for was the lack of purple prose normally hacked into these things, flurries of sentimentality, dates, _the best father in the world _type of inscriptions. Mycroft had simply ordered the most expensive, pretentious headstone he could find, and placed it like a landmark at the top of a hill between two willows.

The melodrama sickened him.

The first thing he would do when he broke back into the public sphere was blow up this mark of his brother's egomania. Hopefully John would help.

The former soldier would stay for a half-hour and then wandered off, pace slower, eyes fixed firmly on the ground, depositing his coffee cup in the trash on his way out. Sherlock wouldn't risk movement in the stillness of the cemetery and accompanied John with his eyes, before returning to his place within the church.

The next day, out of curiosity, Sherlock emerged and waited behind the tree, five minutes before John had arrived yesterday. He normally didn't go outside during the day; actually, he managed to accomplish all his work from within the church, with only fast, furtive phone calls to Molly and a fresh, transmitter-free laptop from one of his secret lock-boxes around the city. She was his spokesperson on the outside, sharing news, telling him how close his brother was to releasing the investigation by the Yard (with liberal help from The British Government) which proved his innocence as well as Moriarty's existence.

Otherwise, he worked on tracking international incidents, ensuring his brother had either murdered, imprisoned, or employed the many assassins Moriarty had surrounded Baker Street with.

Sherlock had set the date for his return for the day of the press conference. Dramatic. Quick. Enigmatic flair. Just what they all needed, one big slap on the face.

Really Sherlock just wanted to see Mycroft's expression of pure, unadulterated horror when he stood up at the end of the pronouncement and asked if the body of Sherlock Holmes had been proved to be _the _body of Sherlock Holmes, and if Mycroft had been angry when Sherlock had left half of their family's fortune to John?

Two weeks. Two weeks until that fateful day and honestly Sherlock wasn't positive he had enough patience to wait. The solitude didn't bother him half as much as the boredom. The constant, unfettered boredom with only the irritatingly painful arrival of his best friend every morning to break up the silence.

The fifth day John arrived, same time, same coat, same coffee (two spoons of sugar and half-and-half, overly sweet just as John preferred), Sherlock was itching for an excuse. He began picking his friend apart every time he saw him, looking for signs of drug abuse, alcoholism, sleeplessness, cutting emotional sentiment, _anything at all _that would tell him that John _needed _him and _needed him now. _

John never gave up his secrets. He drank his coffee. Remained quiet.

Sherlock fidgeted for hours after John left, going over and over the stockpiled images of his friend.

By nine days, Sherlock had a dark suspicion.

It was confirmed the eleventh day.

John was beginning to look _better, _not worse. He'd even gotten a _cat _in the last few days!

Sherlock threw his fist into the wall, five minutes after John had left, imagining Moriarty's face, Mycroft's face, John's face, colored, healthy, smirking John's _fucking _face!

Scotland Yard announced a press conference for seven days from the eleventh day after Sherlock's supposed death. At this stuttering, sickly joyful news coming from Molly's voice across the receiver, Sherlock whipped the disposable cell phone against the moth-ridden armchair and punched the wall five more times, this time for Lestrade.

"Can _nothing _be done on time!" he raged to the empty crypt. "The _second _thing I'm going to do is rip Lestrade a second hemisphere; it doesn't take three weeks to prove my own innocence!"

Fuming, Sherlock set about destroying as much as the basement of the church as possible, which wasn't much, considering most of it was made of marble.

The next morning he positively stomped to his place by the false gravestone, standing stonily with what was close becoming his most faithful friend, _the tree _which he could tell was slowly rotting from the inside out. Complete with his thermos of scorching tea, (Molly had paid one of her grad students to drop off necessities in the bus station lockers across the street, which included a small kettle and a laboratory hotplate) Sherlock glared at John from the fork in the trees. His feet were locked against the snarled roots, biting into the soft soil beneath.

Towards the end of John's stay, when the man was finally beginning to relax from his internal conversation with Sherlock's headstone, Sherlock's eyes fixed on his empty can of tea and whispered, speculatively, "I thought you would miss me more."

Contrary to Sherlock's muttering and sour opinion, John was not the happiest soldier in the camp. He went through his daily routine a delicate balance of trying to appear not overtly depressed but not normal enough to arouse anyone's suspicions that he might, in fact, not be grieving anymore for Sherlock.

It was a thin tightrope to walk, and John thought that Sherlock would probably walk it better than he.

The only reason he escaped close scrutiny was because there _wasn't _anyone to scrutinize him, aside from Mrs. Hudson, who went about her routine trying to keep Baker street as normal as possible.

Mycroft avoided him at all costs, aside from the cutting text, _He left everything to you, _and the knowledge that John could probably rent out Baker Street for the rest of his life on Sherlock's money alone.

Why the man had needed at flat mate was beyond him.

He was filthy with money.

John's profession as a Doctor wasn't exactly short on funding or need as well, especially while he was still getting monthly compensation from the army for his years of service. John found that immediately following his best friend's death he was in a comfortable place.

Hence, the daily masochism of standing by Sherlock's grave. It just wasn't right. Living without him, in practical luxury. The only thing he'd changed about the flat was he'd emptied out the rotting body parts from the kitchen, but all the questionable chemistry, the messy couch, the collection of library titles stolen from Sherlock's university, all had remained the same. John still never managed to buy milk when he was out.

So he came to the graveyard every morning. He went over the facts every morning. He thought about all his stupid, misguided, dangerous adventures with his best friend, every morning.

In his head it usually started out like this:

_Sherlock jumped off St. Bart's on Wednesday._

_Four days later he was buried. _

At this point John did all he could to recollect his time spent between the fall and the funeral, but it was like a white slate. He remembered being in the hospital for his concussion, a tussle with Mycroft to see the morgue, and after that, he thought he could remember going home, collapsing on his bed and closing his eyes.

From then on it was blackness.

He supposed he dreamed that reality wasn't there anymore. He might've carried on sleeping; hoping when he'd wake it would all just be a nightmare.

_Every day, I wake up and visit him._

For the first five days of his new tradition of slowly killing himself, John had gotten that far before his chest swelled up so tight he just slipped into a daze and imagined the world carrying on before they knew the name Moriarty at all.

Then, on the sixth day, something happened.

John knew Sherlock would call him 'sentimental.' _Dead bodies don't __**know **__anything, John,_ he would drawl. _Don't be so…predictable. _But John visited his friend twice a day in the mornings to find his center, (Sherlock had been his center for so long he found it was impossible to manage to find it without him), and in the afternoons on his way back from the Surgery. He got off at 2 every day; Sarah had to cut his hours because they were housing some interns for a medical school. Also, she wanted him to get some rest. Everyone did these days.

So John walked back from a typical day at the office, thinking of not a lot at all, and wandered through the graveyard. Except, on the sixth day, instead of walking straight back to the entrance after pausing to tell Sherlock about his day, (even though John was sure, as in life, a dead Sherlock couldn't care less about his mundane interactions with the med students), he was distracted by a fairly fluffy white cat sitting in the fork of a tree.

John loved cats. And dogs. And hamsters. He loved anything particularly soft and loving, actually, so he immediately crept towards it, singing carefully as he eased up on the tree. The cat, a stray from the quality of its long coat and thinness of its shoulders, let out a soundless mewl and crawled willingly into his arms. John smiled and held it carefully, feeling the cat's purr rumble deep in its skinny chest.

"I should call you something ridiculous, like 'Snowflake' or 'Handkerchief'. That would've driven him crazy." John saddened a little, but found it was hard to take a nose dive into depression with a cat in your arms.

Curiously, he circled the tree. Perhaps the cat was a mommy, and had kittens. John tried not exciting himself too much at that prospect. He only had two arms, after all. And no cell phone seeing as he deliberately left it home so he wouldn't throw it into the Thames in a fit of agony.

What he found instead was just another side of the same tree, nothing particularly interesting about it. In keeping with the neatness of the graveyard, the grass looked perfectly combed. A small bald patch of mud, from the consistent afternoon showers, marred the effect slightly.

At the sight John sighed and shifted the cat, preparing to go. Mrs. Hudson would probably be glad John had brought home a new friend.

_She'll deduce you, _Sherlock's voice whispered. _Everyone will. A cat John? Well, don't name it after me. They'll surly talk the. _

"They do little else," John murmured, looking down at the cat.

John almost started to leave, but a something nipped him in the back of his head, incessantly. A small detail. Something he'd missed that Sherlock would've reamed him for. Warily, he gave the tree another slow look-over.

There. In the mud.

A foot print.

John looked at it, unimpressed, until he realized with the dawning surprise of a man about to crash into a brick wall at the end of the highway that the shoeprints he was looking at were old, solidified in the mud, meaning someone had to have made them early this morning when the ground was soft with dew and the shoes he was looking at…

…he had looked at them countless times.

When he'd said something that made John look away to collect himself.

When he was bracing against his knees after a desperate chase.

When he kicked off his trainers after a day at the Surgery.

Sherlock's shoes. He could see the point of the toe, the precise, tailored hug along the foot, the braced arch to help him run down criminals.

John gasped and leaned against the tree, clutching the cat. When he turned his face up to the disagreeable, overcast sky he was grinning like a madman. His shoulders shook, helplessly, something like a sob and a shout of _I fucking knew it! _Fighting its way out. The cat in his arms twisted in his arms, but the fit was over soon, and John was left staring with wonder at the shoeprints, breathing heavily, smiling so hard his teeth might break.

_Sherlock was alive_. _And he was_ _watching him. _

It felt like he was born again. It felt like the world had become crystal clear and beautiful, a war zone still, but just as it had been when Sherlock was alive—rather, still with him, everything suddenly changed. For the better.

So while Sherlock punched walls and ripped out his hair in frustration and moodily drank cups and cups of tea, plotting his return from death, John found himself preparing the flat for Sherlock's arrival. He had the crumpled dress shirts and pants dry cleaned, the clutter rearranged slightly so that Sherlock's things stood out prominently, he even dusted the skull.

He hoped Sherlock wouldn't object to Sir, the new cat (who was certainly _not _a mommy) as John had found him very therapeutic as he counted down the days to Sherlock's no-doubt melodramatic resurrection.

John knew just where it would be.

The press conference.

Lestrade had invited him to it the week before, when they'd set the date, and muttered, "Justice for him—you know, you should come."

John would come. In fact, he'd even bring Sherlock a little welcoming present.

A nice, new deerstalker.

**A.N- Possible two-shot but this was intended really to just be a small contribution to the fandom. In my head, there is no possible way Sherlock can even survive without John for more than two weeks, or the average time it takes a grown man to starve to death, or die of anemia. This is the only post-fall fic I will ever write, this is the only type I will ever read. Three months is unthinkable, I can't fathom three years. **

**Love you if you read it! It went un-beta'd, and I tend to make tiny grammatical errors when I type fast. I'm not illiterate, I promise. Sorry for the mistakes. If you want my take on the Press Conference, drop me a line!**


	2. Return of the Death Frisbee

**Return of the Death Frisbee**

There weren't as many people as John thought there'd be. In fact, the conference room seemed very bare to him, topping out at maybe 50 reporters, curious civilians, and delicately placed agents of Mycroft for crowd control. People like John and Molly, invited privately, got to stand or sit along the sidelines. Several of the Yard, (young, hero-worshipping officers John had seen occasionally at crime scenes,) were also congregating at the walls, giving John panicked looks every so often, like he was about to go on a shooting spree.

John shifted uncomfortably. Tucked in the inner pocket of his bomber jacket was a fresh new deer stalker, plaid and lined with sheep-skin, something John thought would look miserable with Sherlock's curly hair but would satisfy his urge to punish him for being such a prat.

He covertly scanned the crowd of reporters, who had already been seated when he arrived. Sherlock had to be among them, somewhere.

A thrum of panic laced through his chest, sharp and fast like a gunshot.

_What if he's not here?_

_What if he really is..._

_Dead?_

John's throat worked around the rock that had settled there. With forced concentration he focused on Lestrade, milling about behind the microphones. He tried to make his thoughts organized, carefully detracted from each other as he imagined Sherlock's mind to be at times.

The strained echo of a violin played in the back of his head. He smiled a bit.

Sherlock had settled in the centre-left of the crowd, wearing an old black jacket Molly had borrowed from her boyfriend and a pair of jeans ever so slightly too large. He was itching to rip the jacket off of him, it felt like cheap polyester and smelled of hospital sheets, a clear sign that Molly's little friend was short on cash and sneaking into the hospital to wash his laundry. He missed his coat. And his scarves.

Sherlock sighed irritably and tried not to fidget too much. He knew Mycroft's agents were in the crowd, to keep the reporters in check, and drawing any attention to him would ruin the act.

He fiddled with the ballpoint and notepad he'd stolen on his walk to the Yard's conference room, writing in quick, cursive gibberish that he hoped looked like personalized shorthand to the nosy journalists around him. He thought about trying to create his own language in the six and three-quarter minutes before Lestrade was supposed to present the findings of the investigation and dropped the thought half a second later. His mind was scattered in all directions as it was, he couldn't focus at all.

The one person he wanted to look at he refused to. It might not seem suspicious to the other reporters, who had all stared openly and whispered when John settled along the side of the room, but Sherlock knew if he looked up at John he would never stop. In fact, he would look and look until John's gaze met his, and then he didn't know what he might do.

The pen turned and turned in his long fingers. All at once he wished for his violin.

Lestrade started early, apparently satisfied that all the invitees had arrived. Mycroft slipped in the door just as they were preparing to lock it, giving the crowd and single, hard glance, and then fixing on the Inspector with up-most attention.

"Right," Lestrade began. Sherlock resisted a snort, and wrote down _loquacious as always. _"We're here to talk about the alleged criminal activities of one Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, both deceased. This investigation required several weeks of analysis looking at the facts and numbers, as you know there have been several scandals regarding the subject. I'm here to report to you the facts, so here's the final story." Lestrade took a bracing breath and launched into a succinct listing of all the evidence, and then pieced together a storyboard of events.

Sherlock watched carefully but refused to listen. There was little he hated more than hearing what the Yard got wrong, down to the littlest detail, and for the sake of the game, he had to hold his tongue for the very end.

The meeting threatened to drag on for over thirty minutes, just of Lestrade talking into the microphones. Sherlock itched, shoulders stiff and face blank as time muddled on. His eyes began to twitch, desperately trying to distract him from his overwhelming boredom. He wanted to look at John, see John's reaction to him among all of these rumourmongers and enthusiastic journalists. What would John do, if he called attention to himself now?

John kept two fingers on the hat, but listened to Lestrade patiently. Time seemed to be going very quickly for him.

"It seems some type of coercion lead to Sherlock Holmes' suicide that day," Lestrade sighed, "As someone who worked closely with the Consulting Detective, there is very little I can think of that would lead to his decision, but we have no motive, no note, nothing to indicate what his thoughts were before his death." He raked the crowd with hard eyes, "Please don't ask me, I'd rather keep my opinions out of the investigation."

Sherlock looked up once Lestrade started talking about his death, and was surprised to note that he didn't say anything about the phone call.

_Probably deliberately ignoring it, _Sherlock thought, nodding to himself as he raced through all the possibilities. _Makes me seem more innocent if I didn't 'leave a note.'_

"Any questions?" Lestrade asked, looking as if he'd rather there weren't.

There was an instant three seconds of chaos as reporters raised their hands and shouted for attention, _The Herald, Inspector, wants to know..._

Sherlock glanced momentarily at John and saw the man looking wearily at the crowd. Sherlock fixed his eyes foreward again and knew his time was counting down before someone, John, Mycroft, any of the officers in the room, recognized him. Lestrade answered a question from the front, about when the written report would be released.

"Today at noon," Lestrade nodded to another reporter.

"What was it like working with Sherlock Holmes?"

Sherlock's muscles tensed—he had just been about to stand and drew attention to himself, but this, blatant sentiment, was too good to miss. The whole room grew quiet.

The Inspector closed his eyes for a moment, and Sherlock was impressed that was all he gave away. He knew the man was somewhat fond of him, despite how much of an ass he could be. Lestrade had once been very much like John, blatantly admiring of Sherlock's skills. That had all ended when Sherlock mentioned his wife's affair, but he supposed maybe, he had deserved the resulting animosity.

"Sherlock," he began, "was a brave man. Many of you wrote about the end results of his cases, but few noticed how often he was on the front lines. Sometimes he went in places the law was too afraid to, I am sad to say." Lestrade looked down at his clasped hands. "He was brilliant, and despite what some might say, we should always remember he _chose _to work for us, without pay, despite all derision, despite the danger. He was honourable. A great man." Lestrade paused, glancing at John, "And a good one."

The room was sobered as reporters wrote this down, or took a moment to absorb what had been said. Sherlock looked at Mycroft, who was staring at the Inspector with little-seen respect, and then John, who was smiling down at the floor, and chose his moment.

He stood, tucking the pen and notepad into the pocket of the borrowed coat. His voice carried easily over the heads of reporters and cameras as he proclaimed, "Why thank you Detective Inspector," he carefully kept the glee out of his voice. "I highly enjoy working with you and the rest of the amateurish, disgustingly blind idiots you hire as well, it makes for an interesting crime scene—but I find your sentiment blindingly inappropriate. These reporters as well as I came here to get some facts and yet you are feeding them flammable media material to embellish the rags they print. Honestly, Inspector. Have you no shame?"

He waited, holding his head high as melodramatically as he could, basking in the agape faces of the reporters, the semi-hostile looks he was receiving from Mycroft's men, and the complete shock on Lestrade's face. Sherlock wished someone would take a picture.

Suddenly a camera _did _flash, and the whole room exploded into motion.

Sherlock remained calm, sandwiched as he was between the mob of reporters and bright camera lights now all angling towards him. He could just see Lestrade at the edge of the crowd, shouting at reporters to sit down and let him through. Many of the other officers were standing dumb and pale. Sherlock saw Donovan leaning against the window out in the hall, hands clasped over her mouth. Sherlock met Mycroft's gaze from the centre of the crowd. His brother's face was pale as snow, his eyes bugged out, and it looked like he'd was about to be sick. Sherlock smirked at him and tipped his head in a mock-bow and promised to remember that expression for the rest of his life. Rarely did one pull the wool over the British government's eyes so neatly.

Just has he was starting to break out into a grin, someone stepped very close to Sherlock, bringing his attention around. He prepared himself to push the offending reporter away and saw, instead, John. Staring up at him.

Sherlock's eyes got very large in an instant, his ears deafening to the sound of reporters even as they began to back away at Lestrade's command. John was grinning ear-to-ear, his eyes brighter than Sherlock expected. He looked...well, relived, but not in the faintest surprised! Sherlock narrowed his eyes and focused closely on John's face. Shouldn't he look amazed, at least? Shocked? Angry?

He was taken completely off-guard when John shrugged a bit self-consciously and pulled him into a terribly tight hug, trapping one of Sherlock's arms at his side. He felt the powerful grip of the soldier, and relaxed. There was something forgiving about the whole situation. He hesitantly hugged back with his free arm.

John pulled away and shuffled in his jacket, but Sherlock was too focused on staring at John face, his hands, his shoulders, deducing him blatantly, to pay much attention to that. "What took you so long?" John said, glancing up at him, still grinning—almost _laughing._

Sherlock's eyebrows perked. He felt his face slack as a tidal wave of realization ran him down. _Y__ou stupid idiot, _he thought.

_He knew. He figured it out—saw something._

He had just opened his mouth to ask but all of a sudden something large and fuzzy plopped on top of his head. He looked up, as if he could see it, and went to touch the hat even as he knew what it must be.

"You have got to be kidding me," he growled, sending John a half-hearted glare. The doctor merely grinned. About a dozen cameras went off at the same time. "Stop that!" Sherlock snapped, taking the deer-stalker off. "For god's sake people, it's just a hat, you have about twenty pictures of me in the same thing."

"It—_it is you!"_ Lestrade gasped. Sherlock looked at the Inspector and raised an eyebrow. The man's face contorted into an unappealing mix of relief, happiness, and anger. "I don't know if I should punch you or take you out for a drink!" Before Sherlock could say anything, he whirled on John, "And _you,_" he barked, "_you knew!"_

John clasped his hands behind his back and smiled, "I did, yeah."

"And you didn't think it wise to tell us?" Lestrade's face was shading an alarming red. Sherlock almost stepped in to help, but thought maybe he would risk murder if he did.

John continued to smile, immune to the Inspector's anger. "He was going to come back eventually," he said, laughing a little. "Come on, Lestrade, the Yard could last a few weeks without him. I would've made him come back in a heartbeat if something really dire was going on."

"_Oh, like faking his own death, maybe?_"

"How would you make me come back?" Sherlock asked, giving John an incredulous look.

John looked up at him, brow wrinkling, giving him the _you know what I'm talking about _look that almost made Sherlock feel like nothing had happened.

"We should go," John said, finally, shoving the hat back on his head. Sherlock growled and reached up to rip it off, but John smacked his hand, "Uh-uh!" the doctor chided, eyes sparkling with mischief. "I bought this for you, Sherlock, you have to wear it. It's a gift."

That all sounded very amiable and sweet, but the look on John's face read, _if you don't wear the goddamn hat so help me god your punishment for this will be ten times worse._

Sherlock elected to wear the hat. He even adjusted it a bit tighter.

"Let's go then," he announced, weaving through the crowd. "I know you've gotten a cat, John, and I find we must correct that as soon as possible."

John shoved a few particularly pushy reporters aside and hastened to catch up. "Hey!" he said, "Sir is a lovely cat, you'll like him."

Sherlock paused at the door, hand on the lock, and gave John an incredulous look. John snorted. The curly hair mixing with sheep fluff around his ears was too much. He looked like he had a serious ear-hair problem.

"I highly doubt you require a cat anymore," Sherlock said, voice low so only John could hear it.

John blinked, "Why not?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "Because I'm back, obviously." He hit the latch and pushed the door open, leaving John caught half-way between laughing and blushing.

"Did you ever think that maybe I just like cats?"

"Irrelevant!" Sherlock waved a hand in the air. Donovan and Anderson cowered against a cubicle as he walked past, as if he were a ghost. John thought at first Sherlock hadn't noticed, but after they passed them, Sherlock looked over his shoulder at John and smiled wickedly.

John looked back once, just before they took the stairs down to the main floor. He saw Mycroft most prominently, leaning on his umbrella, chin high and face coldly calculating, as always. John grimaced and flicked his eyes over Lestrade, who was holding in the reporters, and the trail of horrified officers they'd left in their wake.

_That's great, _he thought, following Sherlock through the door. _If we ever walk in here again we'll both be shot._

He turned into the stairwell and abruptly started to giggle. Sherlock paused at the first landing, looking up, a smile breaking over his face as well. "We shouldn't laugh," he said, as John had to lean on the railing to support himself walking down the steps. "I'm sure Mycroft's going to have me tested to ensure I'm truly his brother. The war, John, has just—"

He cut off abruptly as John hit the landing and flung his arms about Sherlock, leaving both arms free this time.

"John," Sherlock said quietly, baritone reverberating against the stairwell. "We already did this."

"I know, you idiot," John's voice was muffled by Sherlock's shoulder, "I'm doing it again." John sucked in a deep breath. He could hardly believe what he was feeling-heat, sinew, bone, blood. His friend, who he had seen as a corpse, was undoubtedly alive underneath him. It was hard for him to follow.

Sherlock glanced up at the stairwell door they had come from, but didn't hear anyone about to come in, so he threw caution to the wind and looped both arms about John's shoulder's and pulled tightly, as John had done in the conference room.

They stood like that for awhile.

Eventually, John was reasonably sure that Sherlock was back again, for good, and felt relieved enough to pull away.

"Really, though, Sherlock," he glanced at the floor to covertly bat the sheen from his eyes. "What do you have against cats?"

Sherlock, who hadn't missed one movement of John's, waited until the soldier looked at him again. Sherlock assessed him silently for a moment, and then said, "Maybe...I can make exceptions."

John smiled, missing the notes in Sherlock's voice that indicated that he wasn't just talking about cats.

"Better be off, hm?" John said, walking down the next flight. "Home?"

"Sounds lovely," Sherlock agreed, joining him on the stairs. "I'm sure skull has missed me. Really, I don't know how he's survived without me."

"Really Sherlock?" John laughed and shoved his friend's elbow. "Mrs. Hudson will have a heart attack when she sees you."

"You people are _so _dramatic," Sherlock sighed, tipping his eyes upward.

He was smiling though. Perhaps, now, things could return to normal. Better than normal, maybe.

**A.N- Did you notice I was trying to end it like three times but just couldn't and continued on? Sorry for lack of editing, and the lateness of this post. I was stuck for a few days, but now I think it's good. Thanks to all my reviewers, really guys, I didn't think it was that good but apparently I was wrong. I hoped you liked this conclusion! If you have any prompt suggestions feel free to shove them on to me. I have a few ideas of my own, but not that many. **

**Thanks for supporting me and my story! You all are the light to my day.**

**PS**

**Sherlock belongs to BBC. **


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